Well that didn’t take long for Swoop FA’s to unionize

[altiplano]

Then you ought to read what I wrote too...

I appreciate the job they do, particularly when they do their job well, I like many of them, I work well with my crew, they deserve a living wage, you get what you negotiate...

I'm glad you agree that FA is not equal to nurse in respect to training and responsibility. Perhaps your personal connection to an FA in your family is what triggered your bad joke.

As you say... all done.

[KAG]

Debating about the flight attendant profession is pointless. While the job itself isn't over taxing, it can be, like ours. Now there is nothing wrong with doing it as a career, with A good solid wage. Now comparing them to nurses is also pointless. Watching my wife go through her nursing program I can assure you its a damn tough course. That said we have some extremely educated FA's (former nurses, bankers, business, physio, cops, ETC). Some have master degrees, others a wealth of non aviation related experience. They do it for the lifestyle, and for that reason it can be a career position.

[Alcoholism]

seems like some here would do well in a communist regime receiving the same loaf bread as any other commrade regardless of job. And people wonder why pilots settle for less. Check your commie cards.

[KAG]

Oh jesus, you pulled the commie card. Let's get something crystal clear, while I dont begrudge anyone a livable wage and career satisfaction we are most certinally NOT on the same level. It's not a round table, there's a head and it's the skipper, followed by the FO. Being an FA isnt a hard job, but has its shitty aspects. Being a pilot takes years of training, experience and frankly not everyone is cut out for it. I'm just pointing out while the (FA) job may be viewed as unskilled labour, there are some very educated and worldly experienced people going it.

[complexintentions]

I know this post is about WJ FAs, but look at Singapore Airlines.....their flight attendants undergo a four-month training programme.

Oh I definitely do look at Singapore Airlines flight attendants every time I'm in the same airport they are.

Hey, if altiplano can make ignorant comments about FA's why can't I?

Difference is, I get chocolate sprinkles on my cappuccino from our FA's, he's gonna get someone's spit in his food, and good on 'em.

[altiplano]

I didn't say anything that isn't true... and I don't worry about getting anything in my food, thanks.

[GRK2]

https://www.facebook.com/aflyguyslounge ... 62/?type=3

One last word...

[Hangry]

I didn't say anything that isn't true... and I don't worry about getting anything in my food, thanks.

who eats their crew meal. gross

[Eric Janson]

Disclaimer:- The opinions expressed below are those of the song writer - not mine!


Here's the final word:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMRUszqMVM8

She don't wear no pants and she don't wear no tie
Always on the ball, she's always on stride
Struttin' up the aisle, big deal you get to fly
You ain't nothing but a waitress in the sky
You ain't nothing but a waitress in the sky

Paid my fare, don't wanna complain
You get to me, you're always outta champagne
Treat me like a bum, don't wear no tie
Because you ain't nothing but a waitress in the sky
You ain't nothing but a waitress in the sky

And the sign says 'Thank you very much for not smoking'
My own sign says 'I'm sorry I'm smoking'
Don't treat me special, oh don't kiss my ass
Treat me like the way they treat 'em up in first class

Sanitation expert and a maintenance engineer
Garbage man, a janitor and you my dear
A reunion flight attendant my oh my
You ain't nothing but a waitress in the sky
You ain't nothing but a waitress in the sky
You ain't nothing but a waitress in the sky
Ohhhh

[rookiepilot]

(Frequent ) Pax view.

Appreciate almost all FA's. Most are very good, professional with safety, and do an at times demanding service job in ever more confined and crowded aircraft. I wouldn't want to do it, thanks.

I'm also currently in the oncology world with family. Dealt with a lot of nurses, for many years.

Bottom line: not even remotely in the same universe in terms of knowledge or regular responsibility, and neither should their pay scale.

[eliteair]

Getting back on topic, now that Swoop is just a Westjet plane painted in pink, was this ULCC venture a major mistake for the company? It forced unionization and degraded the stock. FA's will surely threaten a strike to get what they want. Which group is next to unionize? Operating Swoop as a separate company seems pointless now. The public perception of Rouge wasn't great in the beginning but from a business model standpoint, it's worked out great. I don't believe Swoop will have the same results under the 2 company model. WestJet may as well 'Swoop' the entire fleet.

[aerobod]

Getting back on topic, now that Swoop is just a Westjet plane painted in pink, was this ULCC venture a major mistake for the company? It forced unionization and degraded the stock. FA's will surely threaten a strike to get what they want. Which group is next to unionize? Operating Swoop as a separate company seems pointless now. The public perception of Rouge wasn't great in the beginning but from a business model standpoint, it's worked out great. I don't believe Swoop will have the same results under the 2 company model. WestJet may as well 'Swoop' the entire fleet.

There’s a lot more to Swoop than “WestJet on the cheap”. The two operations are designed to be separate and have little compatibility. WestJet can’t meet the Swoop cost targets and Swoop can’t meet the WestJet product offerings, especially as it moves more into the business market.

Key Swoop characteristics:
- point-to-point flying with no feed
- ex-fuel CASM of 7c
- completely un-bundled
- very basic Res and DCS system that won’t operate with partners (significant cost saving over WesJet systems)
- simplified processes with emphasis on self-serve, close to Ryanair and Spirit Airlinex philosophy to minimize cost

Key WestJet characteristics:
- network flying that requires feed to operate effectively
- ex-fuel CASM of 10c
- variety of product offerings, becoming more complex as business offerings evolve
- complex systems and process integration, leading to much higher sales and fulfilment costs than Swoop
- strong reliance on partners, increasing as widebody flying increases

[jjj]

Getting back on topic, now that Swoop is just a Westjet plane painted in pink, was this ULCC venture a major mistake for the company? It forced unionization and degraded the stock. FA's will surely threaten a strike to get what they want. Which group is next to unionize? Operating Swoop as a separate company seems pointless now. The public perception of Rouge wasn't great in the beginning but from a business model standpoint, it's worked out great. I don't believe Swoop will have the same results under the 2 company model. WestJet may as well 'Swoop' the entire fleet.

There’s a lot more to Swoop than “WestJet on the cheap”. The two operations are designed to be separate and have little compatibility. WestJet can’t meet the Swoop cost targets and Swoop can’t meet the WestJet product offerings, especially as it moves more into the business market.

Key Swoop characteristics:
- point-to-point flying with no feed
- ex-fuel CASM of 7c
- completely un-bundled
- very basic Res and DCS system that won’t operate with partners (significant cost saving over WesJet systems)
- simplified processes with emphasis on self-serve, close to Ryanair and Spirit Airlinex philosophy to minimize cost

Key WestJet characteristics:
- network flying that requires feed to operate effectively
- ex-fuel CASM of 10c
- variety of product offerings, becoming more complex as business offerings evolve
- complex systems and process integration, leading to much higher sales and fulfilment costs than Swoop
- strong reliance on partners, increasing as widebody flying increases

The two operations are designed to attack labour and noting else.

You don't need a separate company to launch another brand.

You do need another company under the parent corp to play a shell game with money. You can trade off costs to make the books say what you want to make any argument you want about profitability and sustainability - It artificially creates the needed buy in.

You can launch the new brand with the right amount of product division and not have to incur start up costs or redundancies in positions like CEOs and Chief pilots and and and...

Swoop CASM is artificially constructed and paid for in full in cash by your friendly neighbourhood WestJetters from across the country.

The product could have been launched for cheaper with much more efficiency and freedom to scale up and down and also handle IROP recovery. The man-power and systems were already in place. CEOs are not cheap, nor are additional reservation systems etc.

I look forward to my next OT shift when I fly a recovery charter for Swoop - I'm sure WestJet will charge a premium for the service.

Cheers.

JJJ

[aerobod]

Getting back on topic, now that Swoop is just a Westjet plane painted in pink, was this ULCC venture a major mistake for the company? It forced unionization and degraded the stock. FA's will surely threaten a strike to get what they want. Which group is next to unionize? Operating Swoop as a separate company seems pointless now. The public perception of Rouge wasn't great in the beginning but from a business model standpoint, it's worked out great. I don't believe Swoop will have the same results under the 2 company model. WestJet may as well 'Swoop' the entire fleet.

There’s a lot more to Swoop than “WestJet on the cheap”. The two operations are designed to be separate and have little compatibility. WestJet can’t meet the Swoop cost targets and Swoop can’t meet the WestJet product offerings, especially as it moves more into the business market.

Key Swoop characteristics:
- point-to-point flying with no feed
- ex-fuel CASM of 7c
- completely un-bundled
- very basic Res and DCS system that won’t operate with partners (significant cost saving over WesJet systems)
- simplified processes with emphasis on self-serve, close to Ryanair and Spirit Airlinex philosophy to minimize cost

Key WestJet characteristics:
- network flying that requires feed to operate effectively
- ex-fuel CASM of 10c
- variety of product offerings, becoming more complex as business offerings evolve
- complex systems and process integration, leading to much higher sales and fulfilment costs than Swoop
- strong reliance on partners, increasing as widebody flying increases

The two operations are designed to attack labour and noting else.

You don't need a separate company to launch another brand.

You do need another company under the parent corp to play a shell game with money. You can trade off costs to make the books say what you want to make any argument you want about profitability and sustainability - It artificially creates the needed buy in.

You can launch the new brand with the right amount of product division and not have to incur start up costs or redundancies in positions like CEOs and Chief pilots and and and...

Swoop CASM is artificially constructed and paid for in full in cash by your friendly neighbourhood WestJetters from across the country.

The product could have been launched for cheaper with much more efficiency and freedom to scale up and down and also handle IROP recovery. The man-power and systems were already in place. CEOs are not cheap, nor are additional reservation systems etc.

I look forward to my next OT shift when I fly a recovery charter for Swoop - I'm sure WestJet will charge a premium for the service.

Cheers.

JJJ

Labour issues came much later than Swoop as a project, it has been almost 3 years since the initial business case was done. It is a consequence of market conditions and the move of WestJet up market. If you haven’t read all the available investor material that has been published and talked to the Sweop business team and execs such as Harry, you won’t have the business case understanding of why Swoop has to be separate and why a sub brand or fare class won’t work.

It has always been the aim to continue growing mainline, while defending the ULCC market that is finally emerging in Canada. Jetstar is the operational model that Swoop is closest to and is the only good model for profitable and effective ULCC that exists for a wholly owned ULCC subsidiary, all other airline within airline and branding attempts to meet ULCC competitive costs have all been failures.

Operationally there are many brutal decisions that have to be made to be a successful ULCC. if you haven’t flown as a passenger on Spirit or Ryanair and reviewed their processes and how different they are to network airlines (that WestJet has effectively become), you won’t understand why you can’t just add on ULCC fares and do anything other than lose money on each seat sold at ULCC prices, there is no economy of scale in using the same airport employees for both types of operation, the processes are not compatible. About 8 years ago I reviewed a lot of the Ryanair airport processes with the WestJet airports team, as Ryanair is about 3 times more efficient in boarding passengers than legacy airlines, but the cultural and marketing shift would have been too great to adopt similar processes. I’m glad to see that Swoop processes are quite close to those of Ryanair (in fact using the same res and DCS system as Ryanair helps a lot in this respect).

[Mr. North]

That's all very sensible aerobod but that still doesn't rectify the fact that Swoop is using WestJet resources to operate. I know plenty of people in other mainline departments now taking on Swoop work. As JJJ mentioned, as long as Swoop is contracting services from the parent company for pennies on the dollar they can easily point to Swoop as being the most profitable airline ever (thereby deserving growth at the expense of mainline).

Most WestJet pilots understand the business reasons for Swoop. However the way it's structured allows for whipsaw which simply cannot be tolerated.

[aerobod]

That's all very sensible aerobod but that still doesn't rectify the fact that Swoop is using WestJet resources to operate. I know plenty of people in other mainline departments now taking on Swoop work. As JJJ mentioned, as long as Swoop is contracting services from the parent company for pennies on the dollar they can easily point to Swoop as being the most profitable airline ever (thereby deserving growth at the expense of mainline).

Most WestJet pilots understand the business reasons for Swoop. However the way it's structured allows for whipsaw which simply cannot be tolerated.

Swoop has to pay mainline rates for any work mainline does for them (although they don’t have to pay a profit markup) and if they can find a lower cost provider, they will take them.

My detailed experience is with IT systems, only about 5% of mainline IT systems are used by Swoop (mainly maintenance systems charge-backs and shared airport systems), Swoop has to also pay the salary of the relevant mainline IT people, approximately 5 FTEs on top of their own IT people. They don’t get anything for free, they have to pay the economic rate when economy of scale of shared services makes sense.

This is one of the reasons the airport staff in general, head office building, res system and call centre don’t utilize mainline resources, as mainline’s cost was higher than Swoop could get elsewhere, bearing in mind mainline could only offer more complex processes and systems than a ULCC needs, Swoop could get the necessary service elsewhere.

Swoop has been designed fairly pragmatically and should continue with more pragmatic decisions to ensure they meet the 7c ex-fuel target that is competitive against other ULCCs.

The rumour mill is rife with mis-information, if you are not getting your information direct from those who own the service, then I would treat it as suspect.

[Transonic]

I think many will understand the reasoning behind having Swoop as a seperate company but what is not acceptable was using another OC. You can have all the above commercial initiatives but WestJet 737s are flown by WestJet pilots.

Now we have a mess of two seperate training systems, two SOPs and all the costs associated with a seperate OC plus bypass pay. This does not sound very ULCC.

The reasoning for a seperate OC was entirely to circumvent ALPA. That didn't happen.

[aerobod]

I think many will understand the reasoning behind having Swoop as a seperate company but what is not acceptable was using another OC. You can have all the above commercial initiatives but WestJet 737s are flown by WestJet pilots.

Now we have a mess of two seperate training systems, two SOPs and all the costs associated with a seperate OC plus bypass pay. This does not sound very ULCC.

The reasoning for a seperate OC was entirely to circumvent ALPA. That didn't happen.

The separate OC was not because of ALPA, it is basically to give significant operational and fiscal flexibility in the future. The debate on whether Encore should have had the aircraft type added to the WestJet OC or be on a separate OC was no different than the Swoop OC debate. Keeping them separate allows each entity to be sold or taken public in their own right in the future, amongst other things. Not having a separate OC makes it almost impossible to segment the different operations in the future, if that is something that is decided strategically will happen. Again, people like Harry, Barb or Candice can provide further insight into corporate decisions and why things are setup the way they are, if you get a chance to bump into them at the campus, or ask questions on Yammer that I'm sure they or their designates will be glad to answer.

[cloak]

aerobod, thanks for the informative posts. As you say Westjet is becoming a full network airline with its codeshares, full service and multiple class, whereas Swoop will defend the rear and generate some new traffic too. Between the two and added tails and wide body, new duty regs and extra crew, there will be plenty of new opportunities at Westjet group.

['97 Tercel]

[altiplano]

Keeping them separate allows each entity to be sold or taken public in their own right in the future, amongst other things. Not having a separate OC makes it almost impossible to segment the different operations in the future, if that is something that is decided strategically will happen.

You say that like it's a good thing...

Allows them to play you all off one another better to.

[aerobod]

Keeping them separate allows each entity to be sold or taken public in their own right in the future, amongst other things. Not having a separate OC makes it almost impossible to segment the different operations in the future, if that is something that is decided strategically will happen.

You say that like it's a good thing...

Allows them to play you all off one another better to.

It is a strategic decision, pragmatically arrived at. Understanding why by talking to the people who are close to the decision will put it in context, otherwise it is easy to descend into paranoia by reading things into a decision that didn’t and don’t exist.

[FL410AV8R]

The decision may have been strategic but the lead up to it and the motivation behind it was as far from pragmatic as it could possibly be. Super charged emotion and bruised egos played a major part.

I, and a significant number of my peers do not trust this executive team. Their track record is mediocre at best and they collectively have destroyed the morale at a company I thought it was impossible to do that at. They have cut to the bone and beyond and incredulously wonder why employee groups are unionizing as fast as they can. Delusional springs to mind.

They have to stop just talking the talk and actually have to walk the walk. A new service introduction without a PR disaster would be a good start, that and owning your mistakes and learning from them as opposed to blaming everyone else for your poor execution. Oh yea and stop being so effing cheap, there is a significant difference between cost conscious and plain old cheap.

[aerobod]

The decision may have been strategic but the lead up to it and the motivation behind it was as far from pragmatic as it could possibly be. Super charged emotion and bruised egos played a major part.

The analysis and decision on Swoop's format, OC, cost structure, etc was based on input from dozens if not hundreds of people, it was pragmatically arrived at and formed the input for the Exec to "sell" to the rest of the company, the rhetoric during the selling job was certainly egotistical on all sides of the argument after that, but I'm a pragmatic person and know from the teams that provided the input into the decision, that there was a great deal of analysis and soul searching on how to compete with the new ULCC entrants attempting to enter the market.

I, and a significant number of my peers do not trust this executive team. Their track record is mediocre at best and they collectively have destroyed the morale at a company I thought it was impossible to do that at. They have cut to the bone and beyond and incredulously wonder why employee groups are unionizing as fast as they can. Delusional springs to mind.

There is a mutual lack of trust in many areas of the company, which is an unfortunate side effect of company growth. This has been the case for the last 10 years, I believe this happens to most companies when passing through about 5000 employees, as there is another layer of separation added between employees that causes communications problems and distortion. No airline has managed to avoid unionisation of the pilot group when they are employees, when growing to the size WestJet is now. Unionisation has certainly been seen as inevitable at some point from the Durf era onwards. Another issue is that a very large number of employees (perhaps the majority) see the pilot group as entitled and not pulling in the same direction as they are trying to do to make the company successful, as can be seen in some of the Yammer and previous WestNet discussions. Exec changes happen due to lack of meeting targets, and there has been recent turnover, but WestJet has been very consistent in it's growth (by design) and has had reasonable profitability with 52 consecutive quarters in profit (who else in the industry has managed this consistency?), this is down to the current Exec and is a fundamental requirement in gaining the investment grade status that so few airlines have. I would argue that the company morale is as good as at most airlines and other billion dollar plus companies (this is borne out by the WHY survey results that still positions WestJet significantly above other companies, but no longer at the very top), but it feels like everything has gone to crap from the inside, whereas in reality it has just become more normal from an industry perspective. The problem is in how to get back to the top of the top quartile instead of the top of the third quartile.

They have to stop just talking the talk and actually have to walk the walk. A new service introduction without a PR disaster would be a good start, that and owning your mistakes and learning from them as opposed to blaming everyone else for your poor execution. Oh yea and stop being so effing cheap, there is a significant difference between cost conscious and plain old cheap.

I wouldn't say service introductions are major PR disasters across the board (service changes have been introduced without issues, such as Rewards program revamp, MAX introduction, LOPA changes), but there have been too many that have been problematic, in my opinion due to trying to do too many things at the same time. Ed seems to be very aware of this problem and has cancelled or put on hold major initiatives with the aim of gaining control of project delivery.

Plain old cheap is core to the heart of the original WestJet culture, vis in the "good old days" office supplies were never bought, but pens were acquired from staying in hotels, team building events were never on work time but held as social events, aircraft grooming was always done with out grumbling, WestJetters auditioned for roles in ad campaigns and pot-lucks were the norm for team gatherings as opposed to the company catering them. CASM was the edge that WestJet used to have over direct competition, the result of keeping it low through "cheapness" was good profit share cheques and good stock price for a great retirement fund, it is now close to the competition so that edge has been lost. So be it if costs stay the same as everywhere else, people get paid a higher base wage and little from an incentive payment perspective, but the fiscal edge has then been lost and the incentive to push harder is not there any more. You can't have it both ways - "the good old days" and "give me the money now and cost be damned".

[Transonic]

Keeping them separate allows each entity to be sold or taken public in their own right in the future, amongst other things. Not having a separate OC makes it almost impossible to segment the different operations in the future, if that is something that is decided strategically will happen.

You say that like it's a good thing...

Allows them to play you all off one another better to.

It is a strategic decision, pragmatically arrived at. Understanding why by talking to the people who are close to the decision will put it in context, otherwise it is easy to descend into paranoia by reading things into a decision that didn’t and don’t exist.

Thanks for the input aerobod. It's well appreciated.

I find it difficult to understand you can "pragmatically" conclude that circumventing unionized labour is low risk. This during a time when an Air France executive had his shirt torn off by a angry mob over the start of Joon.

The decision of a separate OC and therefore separate labour group resulted in the 91% strike vote. Even Gregg in the Q4 conference call stated that "bad things happen when you violate scope clauses" and that we had a "virtual scope clause" with our pilots.

The pragmatic solution would have been to work with your existing labour groups and not bypass them.